MILLIONAIRE CLASS

Monday, November 30, 2015

Myths Taught in our Schools

Some of the Many Economic Myths Taught In Our Schools
(Don Boudreaux)

After reading my recent list of some commonly held economic myths – myths that spring from the widespread misconception that the economy is far simpler than it really is you will begin to suspect that a vast majority of what people popularly believe about economic events is at least misleading and often wrong. A few examples of such common errors are:
price controls prevent higher costs to consumers;
reducing unemployment necessarily requires creation of more jobs;
larger incomes for some people require smaller incomes for others;
free, or low, tuition reduces costs to students;
all unemployment must be wasteful;
stockbrokers and investment advisors predict better than the alternatives of throwing a dart at a list of stocks or the use of horoscopes;
taxes are borne entirely by consumers of taxed items;
employers pay for “employer provided insurance”;
minimum wage legislation helps the unskilled and minorities;
housing developers drive up the price of land;
foreign imports reduce the total of domestic jobs;
“equal pay for equal work” laws aid women, minorities, and the young;
economic efficiency is a matter only of technology and engineering:
agricultural and other surpluses stem from productivity outrunning demand;
capitalism requires a social “harmony of interests”–but also capitalism is the source of competitiveness and conflict;
property rights commonly conflict with human rights;
business people are self-centered and rapacious, while government people are self-sacrificing and altruistic;
labor unions protect the natural brotherhood and collective wellbeing of workers against their natural enemies, employers;
charging a higher price always increases the seller’s profits;
the American economy is increasingly dominated by monopolists who arbitrarily set prices as high and wages as low as they please;
rent control improves and expands housing;
there is unemployment because workers outnumber jobs;
fluctuating prices create wasteful uncertainty and rising prices constitute inflation, so government should make it illegal to raise prices;
we cannot compete in a world in which most foreign wages are lower than wages paid to domestic workers.
…….. and on and on and on.

“The Liberal Syndrome:”

It is a human trait to focus on cheap and lofty rhetoric
rather than costly, earthy reality. It is a bureaucratic characteristic to rail
against the trifling misdemeanor rather than address the often-dangerous
felony. And it is political habit to mask one’s own failures by lecturing
others on their supposed shortcomings. Ambitious elected officials often manage
to do all three. The result in these hard times is that our elected sheriffs,
mayors, and governors are loudly weighing in on national and global challenges
that are quite often out of their own jurisdiction, while ignoring or failing
to solve the very problems that they were elected to address.

Quite simply, the next time your elected local or state
official holds a press conference about global warming, the Middle East, or the
national political climate, expect to experience poor county law enforcement,
bad municipal services, or regional insolvency.

And in de Blasio’s case, the biggest political obsession
with horses since Caligula.

“This Thanksgiving, Be Grateful for Property Rights. The Pilgrims Nearly Starved Without Them“:

People associate property rights with greed and selfishness, but they are keys to our prosperity. Things go wrong when resources are held in common.

Before the Pilgrims were able to hold the first Thanksgiving, they nearly starved. Although they had inherited ideas about individualism and property from the English and Dutch trading empires, they tried communism when they arrived in the New World. They decreed that each family would get an equal share of food, no matter how much work they did.

The results were disastrous. Gov. William Bradford wrote, “Much was stolen both by night and day.” The same plan in Jamestown contributed to starvation, cannibalism, and death of half the population.

So Bradford decreed that families should instead farm private plots. That quickly ended the suffering. Bradford wrote that people now “went willingly into the field.” Soon, there was so much food that the Pilgrims and Indians could celebrate Thanksgiving.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Thanksgiving Day message 1815 of James Madison

Thanksgiving Day message 1815 of James Madison

“No people ought to feel greater obligations to celebrate the
goodness of the Great Disposer of Events and of the Destiny of Nations than the
people of the United States.
His kind providence originally conducted
to them one of the best portions the dwelling place allotted for the great
family of the human race. He protected
and cherished them under all the difficulties and trials to which they were
exposed, in their early days. Under His fostering
care their habits, their sentiments, and their pursuits prepared them to a transition
in the time to a state of independence and self-government. In the arduous struggle
by which it was attained they were distinguished by multiplied tokens of His
benign interposition…And to the same Divine Author of Every Good and Perfect
Gift we are indebted for all these privileges and advantages, religious as well
as civil, which are so richly enjoyed in this beloved land.”

Sunday, November 22, 2015

CULTURAL APPROPRIATION: YOGA & FOOD

CULTURAL APPROPRIATION:
YOGA & FOOD

Is it time to close the schools and send the students to
the countryside to harvest rice? Even
Chairman Mao had a few good ideas.

University closes down Yoga classes. "Yoga has been under a lot of
controversy lately due to how it is being practiced," and which cultures
those practices "are being taken from." The centre official argues since many of
those cultures "have experienced oppression, cultural genocide and
diasporas due to colonialism and western supremacy ... we need to be mindful of
this and how we express ourselves while practising yoga." The concept of cultural appropriation is
normally applied when a dominant culture borrows symbols of a marginalized
culture for dubious reasons -- such as the fad of hipsters donning indigenous
headdresses as a fashion statement, without any regard to cultural significance
or stereotype.

Acting student federation president Romeo Ahimakin denied
the decision resulted from a complaint. Ahimakin
said the student federation put the yoga session on hiatus while they consult
with students "to make it better, more accessible and more inclusive to
certain groups of people that feel left out in yoga-like spaces. ... We are
trying to have those sessions done in a way in which students are aware of
where the spiritual and cultural aspects come from, so that these sessions are
done in a respectful manner."

Food: Several universities
cancel ‘Taco Night’ and other ethnic food serving. Claim “food
is appropriated when people from the dominant culture – in the case of the US,
white folks – start to fetishize or commercialize it, and when they
hoard access to that particular food. When
a dominant culture reduces another community to it’s cuisine, subsumes
histories and stories into menu items – when people think culture can seemingly
be understood with a bite of food, that’s where it gets problematic.

Colonization and gentrification are directly related to the
appropriation of food. We also need to begin educating ourselves on issues and
event that impact the communities that we’re drawing our meals from.

"Ask yourself: If that was Denver,
Col., if that was Texas,
would those guys have been able to spend hours, days, shooting people
randomly?" Noble said, referring to states with pro-gun traditions.
"What I'm saying is it makes police around the world question their views
on gun control. It makes citizens question their views on gun control. You have
to ask yourself, 'Is an armed citizenry more necessary now than it was in the
past with an evolving threat of terrorism?' This is something that has to be
discussed."

"For me it's a profound question," he continued.
"People are quick to say 'gun control, people shouldn't be armed,' etc.,
etc. I think they have to ask themselves: 'Where would you have wanted to be?
In a city where there was gun control and no citizens armed if you're in a
Westgate mall, or in a place like Denver
or Texas?'"

Saturday, November 14, 2015

GUN FREE COUNTRY: VICTIMS LAY ON FLOOR WAITING TO BE SHOT!

GUN FREE COUNTRY: VICTIMS LAY ON FLOOR WAITING TO BE SHOT!

“It lasted for ten minutes. Ten minutes. Ten horrific
minutes where everyone was on the floor covering their heads. We heard so
many gunshots. And the terrorists were very calm. . . . They reloaded three to
four times their weapons. They didn’t shout anything. They didn’t say anything.
They were in masks. They were wearing black clothes. And they were
shooting at people on the floor. And I was luckily at the top of the stage. The
front of the stage. So people tried to escape . . . I found an exit when the
terrorists reloaded their guns. And I climbed on the stage and we found an
exit. ​And when I went on the streets I see 20 to 25 bodies lying on the
floor. And people were very badly injured with gunshot wounds. . . . ​It
was a bloodbath.”

Monday, November 09, 2015

Innovation At The Speed Of Government!

AND YET PEOPLE IN THE GOVERNMENT THOUGHT OBAMACARE WOULD BE
EASY: A
decade into a project to digitize U.S. immigration forms, just 1 is online. “Heaving
under mountains of paperwork, the government has spent more than $1 billion
trying to replace its antiquated approach to managing immigration with a system
of digitized records, online applications and a full suite of nearly 100
electronic forms. A decade in, all that officials have to show for the effort
is a single form that’s now available for online applications and a single type
of fee that immigrants pay electronically. The 94 other forms can be filed only
with paper.”

Tuesday, November 03, 2015

GOVERNMENT FORMULA: FAILURE = GREATER FUNDING + MORE POWER

GOVERNMENT FORMULA:
FAILURE = GREATER FUNDING + MORE
POWER

“The general lesson is that if some part of government fails
in its function, it will most likely be given greater funding and power.
Of course, the purpose of this is not to reward failure;
the thinking would be that more money and power will enable the agency to solve
the problem. But the effect is that government grows
when social problems grow, and thus it is not in the government’s interests to
solve society’s problems.”

David Boaz ask rhetorically about this reality: ‘Can you
imagine a worse incentive system than one that rewards failure
with higher budgets and punishes success with lower budgets?’ I can’t –
yet that’s pretty much the prevailing incentive system for governments around
the world.